In the patent to Kilroy, U.S. Pat. No. 3,790,214, there is disclosed a hydraulic mining system in which ore mined from the face of a stope is converted into a slurry and transmitted through a flexible conduit to a slurry mix tank in the stope. Water from an appropriate source is introduced into the slurry mix tank to achieve a proper consistency for pumping the slurry upwardly through a tube to the ground surface. In this patent there is no recognition of the fact that some mines include stopes at different levels. Thus the apparatus of this patent as such does not provide a simplified system for moving the ore mined from stopes of many levels upwardly through a single upflow tube.
In the patent, Reichl U.S. Pat. No. 3,260,548 there is disclosed coal mining apparatus in which a plurality of rooms are developed on a common level by a mining device. As the coal is mined it is converted into a slurry at the room being mined. This slurry is then conveyed through a tube to a slurry relay station which pumps the slurry to a desired location. Here again there is no suggestion that the mine includes a plurality of stopes at different levels nor that the slurry from each stope be combined in a mix tank at the lowermost level and pumped upwardly to the ground surface through an upflow tube.